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Friday, August 23, 2013

In my opinion the least taught war in United States
classrooms has to be the Korean War.The U.S never declared war on North Korea
because we weren’t there on our own. Our involvement was a result of the United
Nations aiding South Korea with the United States supplying 88% of the forces. The
People’s Republic of China entered the war helping North Korea. Officially
the Soviet Union provided material aid as well for the North Koreans, but talk
to anyone involved, and they firmly believe the Soviet involvement included men
on the ground and in the air.

I feel that events in Korea during the 1950s have a real
place in the classroom, but ignorance keeps it from being fully explored in the
curriculum.

We don’t take the time to fully explore all the
possibilities the content of the Korean War could have in our classrooms. Take any history textbook and thumb through
pages and you see that very little is given about the Korean War. Most of the
time it’s treated as a “breather” of sorts between the end of World War II and
the startup of the Vietnam War.It was
done that way when I was in school, and in most classrooms it’s still treated
that way.

I don’t blame teachers for not diving deep into the
war.Our teaching standards barely touch
on it, but aren’t we cheating students regarding an important chunk of American
History?

Aren’t we throwing the service of the men who served
during the Korean War away by not covering the war as best we can?

The Korean War is just another example why teachers
cannot rely on the textbook as a complete tool to help them frame standards into
a viable curriculum. You have to go outside of the textbook for content and a complete
picture of the events in Korea.

My favorite source happens to be memoirs – first-hand accounts of
the events from those who were there.In the case of Korea I had a memoir fall into my lap through my local
history project regarding Douglas County and Douglasville, Georgia where I
live.One of our former editors for our
local paper has written a memoir which covers many of his life
experiences, but mainly his exploits in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Sicily during
the Korean Conflict. The book is called Excitement!! In War and Peaceby W. Harris Dalton. It can be purchased on Amazon by clicking on the title or
through Yawn’s Books in Canton, Georgia. The cover of the book features a picture of the author (extreme left standing) with some of his buddies.

While there are numerous snippets of information in Mr.
Dalton’s book that could be extracted and infused into a teacher’s Korean War
curriculum here are five things I found extremely interesting:

1. Mr. Dalton spent three years aboard the USS Sicily described in Collier’s
magazine as “the phantom ship” due to the fact it was always on the move and
the enemy didn’t know where they would be next.Mr. Dalton states, “To her credit ‘the Queen’ was victorious in two of
the bloodiest battles – Pusan and Hungnam – in American history. She was also
there providing close air support for the marine’s historic landing on Inchon that
turned the tide of the battle on the peninsula and forced the fight for the
Yalu River."

I don’t know about you, but just from that snippet from
Mr. Dalton’s book I want to Google a few key words for more information.

2. The Black Sheep Squadron was re-commissioned during the Korean War and flew Corsairs off the Sicily.As
Dalton states, “Navy and Marine Corsair pilots were available and they made
perfect sense for the Korean conflict against North Korea which had no air
force and navy.”I know what you are
thinking, and yes....it's the same Black Sheep Squadron that gained a reputation during World War II. The picture below shows some of their planes on the deck of the Sicily.

3. Mr. Dalton gives great insight to a Black Sheep
Squadron mission on Christmas Eve, 1950 where they had been sent out to check
on what was reported to be a group of guerillas heading towards American
troops.The Black Sheep Squadron planes found the suspected
guerillas and completed a fly-over. They found the group contained a large
concentration of women and children. As they flew over the women held their
babies up in what was interpreted as a friendly gesture. The group seemed like
friendly refugees. There was no danger, right?Later these same friendly refugees wiped out a whole Marine group. Members of the
squadron were sent out immediately on a search and destroy mission. One of the
squadron members told to Mr. Dalton, “I circled around, and when I was directly over
them, I dropped a napalm bomb right in the center of the marauders. We then
circled the scene until we had established there were no survivors. I knew they had killed my fellow marines, and
it wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been Christmas Eve.”

4. The book discusses operations involving Chinese and
Russian forces stating, “What had begun as a mission to drive North Korea out
of South Korea escalated into an overt fight against North Korean and Chinese
forces when we moved up the Yalu River and the surreptitious aggression by the
Soviet Union, the bully in the neighborhood.”

Mr. Dalton tells of an incident that was wiped from the
books regarding a supposed Russian submarine that was headed towards U.S.
forces and wouldn’t identify itself. For two hours Mr. Dalton, as radar man, personally filled
three pages of his log book regarding messages concerning the location and
actions of the sub which culminated in sightings of an oil slick.Later when he checked the pages of the logbook, they had
been removed with the explanation that the action HAD NEVER TAKEN PLACE.The event never made the news, of course.

5. During a portion of the time Mr. Dalton was assigned
to the Sicily his captain was John S.
“Jimmy” Thach, made famous for his World War II flying exploits, and for his
invention of the "Thach Weave", a tactic that enabled U.S. fliers to hold their
own against the Japanese Zeroes. He is also given credit regarding another
tactic referred to as the "big blue blanket".

In the picture above Thach is on the right.

So, before you head off to Google all the key words I’ve
thrown at you regarding the Korean War, check out Mr. Dalton’s book for even
more first-hand war experiences aboard the USS
Sicily.